This is another book about September 11, but this one is unlike
any other.
On September 11th, Lauren Manning was running a little late getting
to work. She had been making some business calls and lingered over
her good-bys with her ten-month-old son. Her husband was going in
later, since it had been decided that he wasn’t needed at the 8:00 meeting
at the Windows on the World restaurant.
She got out of her cab and entered the lobby of the North Tower
of the World Trade Center. At that moment, a fireball exploded
down the elevator shaft and blew her back out the door, setting her on
fire. She ran across the street, avoiding falling debris, where a
passerby was able to put out the fire and get her into an ambulance.
She was the first person evacuated.
Greg Manning was called from St. Vincent’s hospital not long after.
Lauren was still coherent and asked to go to a burn unit. She
told her husband, “Greg, I was on fire. I ran out. I prayed
to die. Then I decided to live for Tyler and for you.”
This book tells the story of her heroic fight to survive.
She was burned on 83% of her body, giving her about a 17% chance of making
it. The book is made up of Greg Manning’s nightly e-mail updates
on Lauren’s condition to friends and family. This makes the story
immediate and gripping. Although we know she makes it (by the back
cover), we experience the fear along with her husband as he can hardly
dare hope that she will survive.
This book again takes September 11 from the big, abstract numbers
to the human side of the tragedy and horror. Can you imagine what
it would be like for her to wake up after a month and a half in a drug-induced
coma? She asked if the building was being dismantled. Her
husband answered, “Crews are working on it.” She still didn’t know
about the other planes or even if it was definitely an act of terrorism.
Worst of all, she didn’t know that almost 700 people from her company,
Cantor Fitzgerald, were dead.
Greg Manning is an excellent writer. He simple statement of
the facts leaves us feeling the pain and hope along with him. This
would be a great story even if it were only a novel. As it is, it packs
a powerful punch.
Book Reviews by Sondra Eklund